journal features

a delightful dinner away from .. that sort

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2011.08.29

We had pricey pizzas for dinner tonight to celebrate my darling wife's "75th" birthday.

We were shown a seat close to the front of the restaurant, and were near the reception. At one point I noticed a woman ask to be seated "away from the children" (she made her request obvious through rolled eyes and body language, though she attempted to mask her words - it was either us or the two ladies in wheelchairs two tables over, and the waiter who served her commented that hers was "a common request"). A while later the maître d’ seated a family with kids next to the woman's table. I hope for her precious sake she survived.

After dinner we took the boy for a ride on his "balance bike" and strolled up the boardwalk by the water. Night is already coming more quickly, and there is a slight fragility to the warmth in the evening. Autumn has shown its hand early this year.

rand()m quote

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself.

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov